Vampire Bound: Book Two
By R. A. Steffan
Copyright 2020 by OtherLove Publishing, LLC
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
ONE
PACING HAD NEVER felt so damned unsatisfying. My son was missing, for god’s sake—after mysteriously vanishing from the airline flight he’d boarded in Denver. Meanwhile, I was stuck here in St. Louis, powerless to act.
Leonides—my vampire boss and occasional knight in tarnished armor—glanced toward the door of his extravagant penthouse suite.
“The others are here,” he said, though I’d heard nothing with my pitiful human ears. “Sit down, Vonnie. Preferably before you get worked up enough to set something else on fire.”
My cheeks flamed in response to the jab, even if nothing else around me did. It was a valid concern. Since swallowing vampire blood to heal injuries sustained when the Russian mob took exception to my inability to pay back a debt owed by my deadbeat ex, I’d mysteriously acquired the ability to blow doors off their hinges and set fire to things with the power of my mind.
Lucky me.
That second unwanted skill had come to light barely an hour ago, when I accidentally set fire to the bed I was lying on. Unfortunately, that bed had been located in a swanky apartment on the floor below this one... in a building Leonides personally owned. Predictably, the fire had set off the sprinkler system, necessitating evacuation of the whole building and a visit from the fire department.
Awkward didn’t begin to cover it... but there was no time for any of that now.
I did not, in fact, sit down, though I did at least stop pacing, in favor of rubbing absently at the garnet pendant hanging around my neck. It wasn’t like pacing had accomplished anything on the calming me down front, after all. Leonides crossed to the penthouse door and unlocked it, opening it to reveal Zorah Bright and Ransley Thorpe standing outside.
Zorah was a friend, of sorts; one who’d drifted away under unusual circumstances, only to reappear under even stranger ones. And in addition to being a former coworker of mine, she was also Leonides’ biological granddaughter... not to mention being a vampire who also happened to have demon blood in her family tree. Ransley—Rans, to his friends—was a vampire as well.
And right now, that was good. Because I suspected I was going to need all the supernatural help I could get.
Zorah immediately rushed into the living room and took me by the shoulders, her face set in deep lines of worry. “We’ll get him back, Vonnie,” was the first thing she said. “Somehow, we’ll find out what happened and bring him home.”
The words should have been reassuring. But I could only shake my head in pained bewilderment.
“How could anyone disappear from a pressurized cabin on a commercial jetliner?” I asked, hearing the plaintive note that had entered my voice.
I’d been clinging to the knowledge that Jace couldn’t possibly have fallen from the plane. He’d been inside when it took off—a fact confirmed by multiple cabin staff on the flight. And nothing could physically leave the cabin in flight without causing it to catastrophically depressurize. That wasn’t the kind of thing you could cover up after the fact.
“I’ve a couple of ideas about that,” Rans said grimly. His precise British accent lent weight to the words, and I looked over Zorah’s shoulder to meet his ice-blue gaze.
Leonides frowned, and Zorah loosened her grip on me to turn around as well.
“You think it was the Fae?” Leonides asked. “How the hell could they have tracked our movements so quickly?”
“Magical surveillance,” Rans replied, his expression set in hard planes. “And believe me when I say, I’ll spend the next century or so kicking myself for not considering the possibility.”
“Okay, slow down,” Zorah said, saving me the necessity. “So, you believe this Teague character managed to get a tracking spell on Jace, and portaled him off the plane in mid-flight?”
“Or arranged for someone else to portal him off. Whenever you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, et cetera,” Rans said, waving a hand in frustration.
Leonides’ mouth twisted downward. “Could’ve just as easily been a demon.”
I lifted my fingertips to my temple, pressing hard against the headache trying to break through.
“Could someone back up and start talking in a way that actually makes sense?” I demanded. “What do you mean, portaled?”
Zorah took pity on me. “Some Fae have the ability to rip a magical tunnel through space from one point to another. They can travel long distances almost instantaneously that way. They can also transport other people through the tunnels. Remember the video game Portal?”
“Not... really?” I hazarded, trying to take the explanation on board. The scariest part was that it wasn’t all that much more improbable than anything else that had happened to me in the last few days.
She shrugged. “Anyway, to make things even more complicated, demons possess the ability to teleport from place to place in the blink of an eye. So it technically could have been a demon.”
I stared at her, flashing back to the night a demon had appeared in Leonides’ jazz club after closing time, even though the place had already been locked up tight.
“Is that how Nigellus got in and out of The Vixen’s Den after hours?” I asked, meeting his dark eyes.
“What? Nigellus was here?” Rans interrupted, his tone hovering somewhere on the spectrum between angry and scandalized. Zorah also looked taken aback.
“Yeah,” Leonides said tightly. “Though I’m not sure yet if his visit relates to the current situation. It pains me to say it, but try as I might, I guess I can’t really see any motivation for a demon to snatch the kid. Fuck, I should have made him a fake identity to fly under.”
Zorah gripped my shoulder again, giving me a supportive squeeze.
“If Jace had a Fae tracking spell on him,” she told him, “a fake identity wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“Look, at this point I’m a lot less interested in the details of how he was taken than of where he was taken,” I said.
“Quite,” Rans agreed. “To that end, perhaps Zorah and I should head for Denver to investigate, and from there, to El Paso. I hear the cactus is lovely this time of year.”
“Sure, great, let’s go,” I said, aware that sometime in the past few hours, I’d overcome my squeamishness related to spending other people’s money.
Not so long ago, the idea of accepting an expensive, last minute plane ticket from my rich boss or his rich friends would have mortified me—especially right after I’d caused a bunch of costly damage to the aforementioned boss’s fancy apartment building.
Now? Bring on the charity, baby.
“Not you, Vonnie. You’re not going anywhere until we figure out what’s going on with your magic and get it under control,” Leonides said.
I gaped at him. “Excuse me?”
Zorah squared up to him as well, standing at my shoulder. “Excuse you?
It’s the woman’s son, Guthrie. The thing with the door—well, let’s just say there were extreme circumstances at play.”
I pushed past the mental disconnect of hearing Zorah use her grandfather’s decidedly un-vampire-like first name, and crossed my arms stubbornly. Leonides only raised an eyebrow at me.
“She set the bed on fire while she was sleeping on it,” he said in a monotone.
My cheeks flamed with mortification again. I... hadn’t actually been sleeping when I set the mattress aflame.
“What?” Zorah asked, whirling to face me.
“It was an accident,” I muttered.
Rans eyed me with interest. “Since you don’t smell like a smoker, I assume we’re not speaking about an unfortunate mishap with a lit cigarette.”
I blushed hotter.
“We’re not,” Leonides said.
With difficulty, I rallied. “Whatever magical side effects your crazy vampire blood gave me, that’s completely separate from going after Jace. We’re wasting time.”
“And if you accidentally blow a hole in the plane’s fuselage while it’s at cruising speed?” Leonides asked. “Or set something in the cabin on fire?”
The blood that had been staining my cheeks and neck drained abruptly from my face in response to the image he painted.
“I can’t just stay here and do nothing,” I said, uncertainty creeping into my tone despite my best efforts.
Zorah looked at me with worry in her dark eyes. “Look, babe... I’m sorry. But this sounds more serious than I thought. And... well, the police don’t generally drag a kid’s parents along with them while they’re investigating a kidnapping. Not that this is a normal kidnapping, of course... and not that the police will necessarily be investigating it, if the Fae are involved. But the airline sure as hell will be. From their perspective, this is a multi-million dollar lawsuit just waiting to happen. Plus, we’ll be investigating.”
“So will we,” Leonides added, his voice grim. “But from a different angle. I doubt Teague will have left St. Louis when he’s neck-deep in trying to make my life miserable. Dunno about the rest of you, but he sure as hell sounds like a person of interest to me.”
And... that was actually a really good point.
Rans nodded cautiously. “All right, then.”
“Sure you’re okay to handle this creep on your own?” Zorah asked. “As I recall, he’s reason you called us here in the first place.”
“It’s looking more and more likely that the thing I was worried about when I called you has just happened anyway,” Leonides said. “Plus, Teague’s young. Or so I’m told. I have some thoughts on how to make him slip up.”
“Young, eh? And did this tidbit of gossip come from Nigellus, by any chance?” Rans asked. “You know, if you and he are starting a knitting circle, you might ask him if you could borrow Edward for a bit.”
Leonides glowered. “He came to the club one time, Rans—because you wouldn’t return his calls. He asked me to play supernatural fix-it man for him, at which point I told him to go fuck himself, and he left.”
My stomach—already roiled by worry—dipped unpleasantly. “But when he came in, he wanted you to look into...”
“Human children and teenagers going missing around the world, yeah,” he finished. “File it alongside the other things we can kick ourselves over.”
“Children going missing? Older children, meaning it’s not related to the Tithe? Oh... holy shit,” Zorah said.
Silence reigned for a long moment as that sunk in.
“It could be coincidence,” Rans said eventually. “Or it could be related. But, whatever the case, you should still ask for Edward’s help with your little pyrokinesis problem.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask who the hell Edward was supposed to be. At the last moment, I decided I didn’t care.
“Could we just... do something now? Please?” I asked instead.
“Yeah, Von, of course,” Zorah said. “We’re on it—promise. I’ve got pretty good Fae radar, and I’m confident there weren’t any of the creepy blond bastards nearby when we were getting Jace onto the plane at Lambert. Like Rans said, we’ll snoop around in Denver and El Paso, and report back. You get with Edward about your magic, and see if Guthrie can shake anything out of this Teague character. Have you told your no-good baby daddy what’s happening yet?”
The reminder of Richard was the last thing I needed right now, but—
“I called him. No answer. I left a message.”
“Okay.” Zorah darted in for a quick hug, and I tried not to be ashamed at how tightly I clung to her as she said, “We’re off, in that case. And Guthrie—seriously. Don’t piss off the wrong Fae and get hauled away to Dhuinne in silver shackles while we’re gone. I’d be upset, and Rans would do that eye-rolling thing you hate so much.”
“I’ll do a lot more than that,” Rans muttered.
“Less fussing. More going,” Leonides said. “Stay in touch. We’ll do the same.”
They went. As soon as the door closed behind them, I started pacing again as I pulled out my phone and made another unsuccessful attempt to reach Richard.
Leonides sighed. “The smartest thing would probably be to call Nigellus right away and see about getting Edward on retainer. But from your expression, I’m guessing we have a mob-funded CBD and vape shop to visit first.”
I put the phone away and scrubbed a hand through my tangled hair. “You’d guess right.” Because this, of course, was exactly what I needed on top of everything else that had happened tonight.
TWO
TO SAY THAT I was over dealing with Richard’s bullcrap was an understatement. But A) he was Jace’s father, and he deserved to learn about his son’s disappearance from somewhere other than the ten o’clock news, and B) there was a very real possibility that he was currently bleeding out on the floor of his precious shop, because he was too stupid to run and hide when the Russian mob was after him.
On the list of things I expected to find when Leonides and I arrived in the unfashionable neighborhood—located several blocks east of the much more fashionable Delmar Loop—a shattered store window was pretty high on the list, actually.
The dead mobsters scattered among upended shelving units with their throats and bellies ripped open was... considerably lower on the list. More accurately, it hadn’t been on the list at all. My gut churned, clearly signaling that it, too, was about done with this kind of bullcrap.
“I... think I might be sick,” I managed faintly, stopping myself an instant before I would have reached out a hand to brace against the window frame still bristling with shards of broken glass.
“Do it outside, please,” Leonides said, already sliding past me, through the gap and into the store. “Cleanup in here is going to be bad enough as it is.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed hard a couple of times to get my gorge back where it belonged. When I was confident that my stomach contents would stay put, I followed him inside, being careful of the sharp edges of glass. An anemic fluorescent light buzzed and flickered overhead, illuminating a scene I was in no hurry to see in any kind of detail. My heart thudded against my chest as I tried to fit the grisly tableau into any kind of rational scenario.
These men looked like they’d been... mauled. And I was quite frankly running close to capacity when it came to dealing with weird, inexplicable shit.
I struggled to wrap my brain around the idea that Richard could be dead. Not so very long ago, I’d been so damned angry with him that I’d convinced myself I’d happily dance on his grave if he managed to get himself killed. Somehow, the reality of it wasn’t quite so cut and dried.
“Richard?” I called in a quavering voice. At the same moment, I registered the smell of kerosene inside the store. My eyes landed on a five-gallon gas can lying on its side near the front entrance.
“Someone’s still alive in here,” Leonides said grimly. “I can hear breathing and a heartbeat.”
Right. Because he was
a freakin’ vampire, and of course he could. A shiver skittered up the length of my spine. The magical pendant at my throat tingled and throbbed against my skin.
“Where?” I asked.
“Back corner,” he replied in a terse tone.
I turned in that direction, only to freeze in place as a low, feral growl reached my ears. The flickering light above us chose that moment to give up the ghost, plunging the shop into near-darkness broken only by the sodium glow of a streetlight further down the block.
“Okay, you have got to be fucking with me right now,” Leonides said, as a pale, oversized wolf stalked around the corner of the checkout counter.
I blinked, and blinked again. The animal appeared diaphanous, its silver fur illuminating the darkness around it. I was absolutely sure I could see through its body to what lay on the other side.
“Wh-what?” I squeaked.
The beast’s lip was curled into a snarl, but at the sound of my voice it paused, sniffing the air.
“Vonnie? Is that you?” Richard’s wavering voice reached me, and I caught my breath as he crawled around the counter, following in the ghostly wolf’s footsteps. He dragged himself upright, stumbling, his bloodless face lit strangely by the glow from the animal’s fur. “I don’t know what’s happening. They broke the window, and there was shooting, and... and... what’s happening to me?”
I stood staring at him with my mouth open, waiting for words to come.
“He swallowed Rans’ blood, too,” Leonides said, as though it were some kind of explanation.
I mentally bitch-slapped myself a couple of times until some neurons started firing. After a beat, connections slotted into place. I wasn’t all that fond of the shape they formed.
“Are you telling me that vampire blood does this kind of thing to everyone?” I demanded. It came out unpleasantly shrill. “Why the hell didn’t you warn us?”
“No,” Leonides said, staring at the wolf with an intense gaze. “It absolutely doesn’t do this kind of shit to everyone. That’s the entire point.”
“What are you talking about?” Richard asked in a tone of desperation. The wolf growled again.
Vampire Bound: Book Two Page 1